Just got mine, but the motor included doesn’t won’t work with circ_03. it spins just fine hooked directly to Vcc and Gnd, but not in the circuit.. i tore down and rebuilt that circuit 6 times. added lighting up the led on pin13 to make sure the code was running. put an led in place of the motor real quick to make sure current was traveling through the transistor. it was. the supplied motor just draws too much current for the circuit.

I know you are looking for non-chain stores, but i would recommend contacting the hobby department of the Ace Hardware in Berkeley, CA on University. This store has a hobby basement that is packed with models, HO and N gauge model trains, rocketry, and more. They already have a little section with some older style electronics kits, and I think a more up to date set of electronics kits like those from SparkFun would be great in there. It may officially be part of a chain, but this store, at least downstairs, has always operated more like a mom and pop. They have model train layouts in the window of the store, and an overhead track upstairs, hanging from the ceiling that has been there since I can remember (1974 when I was 6). The combination of arduino products and model railroading leads to some very cool ideas, and since i started playing with arduino, and SparkFun kits, I have pulled my old HO layout out and started cleaning it up. I hope someone else here knows of the Ace basement :)

Al Lashers is the best place I know of in the east bay for electronics components. It isn’t however much of a hobby shop. It’s not as much the type of place that anyone is going to wander in looking for kits. It is however awesome, and I would like to see them carry more dev kits that make entry into electronics easier, because they might have the complete line of ATmega products, but they probably don’t have anything that would convince a beginner to try out hardware programming.

Before i blow something up when i buy one of these, can I get a recommendation getting max battery power and life? 6 motors seems like a lot to drive, and I don’t have any experience with how quickly that might drain a battery or what batteries to use. If i use multiple 7.2v rc battery packs in parallel, what problems might I encounter in terms of keeping them balanced?
Let’s assume that i am taking each out and charging individually.

My best guess, not having played with this board, is that it won’t support any SD HC card.
FAT16 can’t address 4G of space
try again with a really cheap smaller capacity card if you haven’t already. curious to hear if it works then.

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